Speedy seniors finish Triple Challenge

The competition ranged in age from 49 to 89. They biked, ran, swam and walked, all with the goal of staying healthy, having fun and competing in the Triple Challenge, the opening event of the Beaufort-Jasper Active Adult Challenge.

At 49, Bill Masterton won’t win any prizes, but it could be a matter of warming up for the future. That’s what Bonnie Sotire did when she first moved to Sun City in 2000.

“I’ve been competing in the Sun City Challenge and now the Triple Challenge ever since I turned 50 and I’m 58. So it’s been fun,” she said. “They let me compete when I was 48 and 49 but I wasn’t allowed to qualify for awards.”

Sotire was the first overall winner in the swim portion and was the first woman to finish in the 3-mile run and 10-mile bike ride. She’s had plenty of experience in all three events.

“I do triathlons, running races and swimming. I was doing that up in New Jersey before we moved here and now I’ve been doing it here for 10 years. I’m trying to make it a lifestyle so I can live longer.”

The oldest participant to finish in the top three was master swimmer Barbara Eisele, 81. While not the oldest competitor in the games — that honor goes to perennial favorite Gray Herring, 89 — Eisele finished third in the swim portion of the Triple Challenge.

Eisele is a member of the U.S. Masters Swimming, open to ages 20 and older. She swims in Bluffton on a team that includes a number of younger triathletes.

“The U.S. Masters have meets all over the country and the world,” she said.

Her group is part of the Dixie Zone that includes North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and a part of Texas. Swim meets include a long course national meet and a short course national meet and a short course meter swim which in which she will compete in December in Columbia. She moved to Sun City at age 67.

“When I was 68, the challenge was my first competitive swim. I do the 100 butterfly, the 400 individual medley. That’s challenging. I do all the strokes. Most of the events are two days, and you can swim five events each day so I usually end up swimming 10 events in the master’s meets,” she said. “Keeps me healthy. I think I’ve inherited long life. My mother lived to be 97 and I want to be healthy. Exercise is one of the three — food, exercise and mind games, so you got to keep going in every way you can.”